August 2013 Cyber Attacks Statistics

It’s time for the statistics derived from the Cyber Attacks Timelines of August (Part I and Part II).

As usual, it is important to point out that I cannot provide a comprehensive picture since I only take into consideration those events that, in my opinion, deserve to be taken into consideration. Nevertheless I believe this data can be useful to understand what’s going on.

Before starting, please let me thank @piz69 who gave me very useful suggestions to sort the data. I am not a big fan of Excel (and hence of its Pivot Tables), but I must confess they are very useful!

Let us begin with the Daily Trend of Attacks chart. The chart is dominated by the peak around the August, the 15th. A clear consequence of the mutual attacks between India and Pakistan in conjunction with their respective Independence Days.

US and UK confirm their top rank in the Country Distribution chart, with India that overtakes Pakistan, pushing it out of the podium. For sure the US are a willing prey for Cyber Criminals, but is also necessary to consider the influence of the Security Breach Notification Law, which grants a higher transparency. I wonder if EU countries will climb the rankings once the new Data Breach Notification Law will fully come into effect.

Just like the previous month, Cyber Crime leads the Motivation Behind Attacks chart with approximately half of the attacks recorded. Hacktivism is stable at 35% while the growth of Cyber Warfare is related (once again) to the cyber skirmishes between India and Pakistan.

Apparently is getting harder and harder to track the real technique used to carry on the attacks (apparently nearly for one attack on four this was not possible). However, DDoS in on the spot again and leads the Distribution Of Attack Techniques chart for the known cases. The Syrian Electronic Army traced the line, so the influence of Account Hijacking is becoming more and more evident month after month. Instead the fall of SQLi keeps on. Apparently this technique is constantly loosing points (but I wonder how many of the “unknowns” were effectively related to SQLi.

And just for a change, once again, Governmental targets lead the Distribution of Target chart with nearly 26%. Industry ranks at number two, while single individuals (victims essentially of account hijackings) rank at number three. It is interestig to notice, among the organizations victims of Cyber Attacks, the predominance of targets related to Political Parties, a consequence of the social protests exploding all over the world in these troubled days.

As usual, please bear in mind that the sample must be taken very carefully since it refers only to discovered attacks included in my timelines. The sample does not pretend to be exhaustive but only aims to provide an high level overview of the “cyber landscape”.

If you want to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012 and now 2013 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).